I. I. Hayes

“ But not on our desert island alone was nature full of life and gayety. The seals, as if glad that summer had once more returned, crawled out upon the ice, and lay there on it, where it floated in the water, basking in the sun. There were hundreds and hundreds of them to be seen almost every day; and, besides the seals, the walruses, with their great long hideous-looking tusks and ugly and ungraceful bodies, came up too ”

“ The sky was for the most part cloudless, and no snow fell189 from the heavens, but the light snow that lay upon the ice was picked up, as it were, by the wind, and whirled through the air in a manner as beautiful as it was terrible; for the drift coming in streams, with the rushing wind, lashed our faces, torturing us in a terrible manner, chilling us through and through, and almost overpowering us. ”

“ But what struck the Dean and I most strangely was that they should be living in this happy state away out there on the sea, a long distance from land, really burrowing in the snow for shelter, and roaming about for food like beasts of prey, and yet enjoying themselves and amusing themselves after the fashion of civilized human beings, so far as their relations to one another were concerned. ”

“ A dreadful thing to live along for days and days, and weeks and weeks, and months and months, without the blessed light of day,—without once seeing the sun come up and brighten everything and make us glad, and the pretty flowers to unfold themselves, and all the living world praise the Lord for remembering it. That’s what you never see in all the Arctic winter,—no sunshine ever streaming up above the hills and making all the rainbow colors in the clouds. ”

“ Nearer and nearer came the bear, and greater grew our alarm. Our hearts beat violently in our breasts; our faces were pale as death; we held our breath, as if fearful of making the least noise to give the bear encouragement. At length our enemy gave a sudden start. It seemed to us as if he had now made a dash at the window, so we both rose to our feet, with our weapons ready to meet him; but, to our great joy and relief, the sound of his footsteps showed that the beast was retreating, rather than advancing, and was moving more rapidly. ”

“ The Dean and I one day came across one of these little flowers, looking just like a buttercup, only the whole plant was—well, the littlest thing you ever did see. Why, it was so little that little Alice’s little thimble, with which she is learning to sew so prettily, would have been quite large enough for a flower-pot to put the whole of it in! and it would have grown there, too,—and glad enough, no doubt. There was a great snow-bank hanging right over it, and there was ice all around it. ”

“ The Dean felt it most, for he was, at the very outset, perfectly confident of success. Neither of us, however, wished to own how much we felt the failure, so we spoke very little more together, but made, almost in silence, another meal off the raw eggs, and, being now quite worn out and weary with the labors and anxieties of the day, we passed the next twelve hours in watching and sleeping alternately in the bright sunshine, lying as before on the green grass, covered with the overcoat. We did not even dare hope for better fortune on the morrow. ”

“ While reflecting in this way, we heard one of the savages cry out ‘Oomeaksuak, Oomeaksuak!’ several times; and, running a little higher up the hillside whence the cry proceeded, our eyes were gladdened by seeing far off, with the hull yet hidden below the horizon, a ship under full sail, steering northward. At first the Dean, who had been so often cheated, thought it might be an iceberg; but it was clearly a ship that we saw this time. From fear that it might be an iceberg, we passed now to fear that it might hold off from the land, and not discover us, which would be even harder to bear. ”

“ You will see, therefore, that there is but one way for any of us to preserve an even temper and uniform disposition; that is, I mean, always to be cheerful, never despondent, ever hopeful; and this can only be attained by always feeling the real presence of God with us; when we meet with disappointment, to say in our hearts, ‘Well, it was not the will of God,’ or, if we meet with what seems great good fortune, ‘It is the will of God that we do some good work, and therefore he has thus blessed us.’ Thus only can we be truly happy. ”

“ When you go away beyond the Arctic Circle, you see great fiery streams start up from a fiery arch that stretches right across the sky before you; and from this fiery arch the fiery streams of light shoot up, and then fall back again,—sometimes lasting for a little while, and waving in the sky, to and fro, like a silken curtain of many colors fluttering in the wind ”

“ Hard,—isn’t it? But we must do the best we can. I feel that I’ll soon be well, and will not be a trouble to you long. Do you know that until this moment I could hardly get it out of my head that I had been dreaming? We must trust in Heaven, Hardy, and do the best we can.’
“Being now fully satisfied as to the complete recovery of the Dean, I gave myself no further concern about watching him; but at once, after he had, in his quiet way, asked me if I was not very tired, I buried myself up in the heap of eider-down close beside him, and was soon as deeply buried in a sound sleep.” ”

“ Then we rushed up to the bear, Eatum leading; and fierce though the animal looked, and awfully as he roared, we closed right in upon him, and quickly made an end of him. Then we drove off the dogs, and tied them to a hummock of ice, while we butchered the dead animal and secured the skin and what meat we wanted, after which we allowed the dogs to gorge themselves. Being now too full to haul, we had to let them lie down and sleep, while we built a snow hut, and, crawling into it, got a good rest. Then we returned to the island, mighty well satisfied with ourselves. ”

“ Being the undisputed owners of this Rock of Good Hope, we considered ourselves none the less owners of all the foxes, ducks, eggs, eider-down, dead beasts, dry bones, and whatsoever else there might be upon it; and, besides this, we had a lien upon all the seals and walruses and whales of every kind that lived in the sea,—that is, if we could catch them.
“We now worked with even a better spirit than we had done before, for the idea of being settled on the island for life seemed to imply that we had need to look ahead farther than when our hopes of rescue had been strong. ”

“ As none of the young women were willing to take us on these conditions, although not very flattering to us, we got out of the difficulty without offending anybody. At first the Dean was quite indignant, but afterwards he laughed, and said, ‘Why, just think of it! Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Dean in seal-skin breeches and long boots,—a jolly idea indeed!’ But one of the girls was fond enough of the Dean for all, only she mustn’t show it; for these people are mighty particular about that. When all is arranged by the parents, the girl is obliged, even then, to say she won’t have her lover. ”

“ And so the poor Dean didn’t know what to do; until one of his old shipmates met him in the street, and took him off to New Bedford, and shipped him as cabin-boy of the Blackbird. ‘And now here I am,’ said the poor little Dean, ‘and all the rest you know,—cast away in the cold, in this awful place, while my poor sick mother has no money and no friends in all the world, and is thinking all the time what a wretch I am to run away and desert her, when, God knows, I meant to do nothing of the sort!’ and so the Dean burst out crying, and, to tell you the truth, I could not help crying a little too. ”

“ I had no idea it was so frightful.”
“Nor I,” said Fred, evidently doubting if Captain Hardy was really the shipwrecked boy; but Alice said not a word, for she was lost in wonder.
“I should not have believed it was you, Captain Hardy,” continued William, “if you had not been telling the story yourself, this very minute; for I cannot see how you should ever have got out of that scrape. It’s ever so much worse than going into the sea on the seal’s back.” ”

“ But everybody appeared to be kindly disposed towards us, and into one of the huts we were both taken immediately, and down we sat on the floor of the hut, which was covered all over with bear-skins. There were two lamps in it, almost exactly like ours, and two pots were hanging over them. We had soon a good meal, and very quickly after that were sound asleep; and even although it was a snow hut, and among savages, we were thankful in our very heart of hearts. And our thankfulness was because we were among human beings once more, and felt no longer as if we were wholly cast away from the world ”

“ It is, indeed, a fearful thing in anybody’s life ever to have met with any adventure that is at all peculiar; for to the end of his days people will never get done asking him about it; and most likely their questions are of the most ridiculous kind, like, ‘Hardy, wasn’t it cold there?’ just as if anybody could be cast away in the cold, and find it anything else; or, ‘How did you feel, Hardy?’ as if feeling has anything at all to do with you when you are trying to save your life. ”

“ However, since I had discovered so many other things on this my first journey around the island, I was not without hope that I should light upon some way of starting a fire. So I named the plant at once ‘the fire plant;’ but I have since been told by a wise doctor that I met down in Boston, that its right name is ‘Andromeda.’ It is a sort of heather, like the Scotch heather that you have all heard about, only it is as much smaller than the Scotch heather as the dwarf willow I told you of is smaller than the tall willow-tree that grows out there in front of the door. ”

“ Resolved to sell our lives as dearly as possible, we grasped our weapons firmly, the Dean his ‘Delight’ and I ‘Old Crumply,’ to the end of which I had firmly lashed the jack-knife, after grinding it very sharp on a stone, and giving it a good point. As the knife-blade was quite long, I had strong hopes of giving the bear such a wound, when he appeared at the window, as might be the death of him, or, at any rate, frighten him so badly that he would be glad to run away, and not come back any more. ”

“ The instinct of life is strong in every living thing, and young sailor-boys are no exception to the rule; so, after I had stood in the presence of this frightful chaos for I have not the least idea how long, I began to think what I should do to save myself.
“The waves which had been raised after a while began steadily to subside, and, as the sea became more calm, I found that I could approach nearer to where the wreck had happened by jumping over some of the cracks which had been made in the ice, and walking across piece after piece of it. ”

“ But we soon had to give up speculating about the prospect ahead, and had to let the Rock of Good Hope, and the hut, and the life we had led there, with its struggles and trials and triumphs, pass away as some vaguely remembered dream; for on we sped, with our caravan of sledges, over the frozen sea,—the dogs all lively, and galloping away with their bushy tails curled over their backs, and their heads up; their savage drivers crying to them, now and then, ‘Ka-ka! ”

“ Thus you see how all people in the same conditions of life will naturally be led to the same way of providing for their wants,—our senses being given to us all, whether savage or civilized, for the same purpose. I have showed you already how, in our mode of starting a fire, in our lamp, pot, and other domestic implements; our clothing, harpoon, and the like,—we had imitated these savages unconsciously ”

“ And thus the auroral light and color keep pulsating in the air, up and down, up and down; and thus the icebergs seem to come and go; and the very stars above seem to be rushing out with a bold bright glare, and going back again as quickly, singed and withered, as it were, into puny sparks, and, utterly disheartened with the effort to keep their places in the face of such a flood of brightness, are at length resolved no more to try to twinkle, twinkle through the night. ”

“ When we had been again refreshed with sleep, we determined to make a still further exploration of the island; so, after once more eating our fill of raw eggs, we set out. The Dean, being still weak and his head still paining him very much from the hurt, remained at the lookout. He could, however, walk up and down for a few hundred yards without losing sight of the only part of the sea that was free enough of ice to allow a ship to approach the island. After a while he came to where I had discovered the dead seal and narwhal lying on the beach, when upon my first journey round the island. ”

“ But then, on the other hand, the prospect that loomed up ahead of us was not of a very encouraging description. ‘Where were the savages taking us? what would they do with us?’ were questions which kept haunting us all the time. We could see nothing clearly; and no matter what might happen in the end for our advantage, we must, in any case, live among these wild people for an indefinite time, subject to their savage caprices and savage and lawless ways of life. ”

“ I must say first that the Rob Roy was a good, stout ship; the master a bluff, good-hearted Scotchman; the mate a kindly man, and altogether different from the red-faced mate that was on the Blackbird; and the people were all just as good and kind to us as the savages had been. ”